


The Not-So-Great Blackout of 2006

by altsunthinkable



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-27
Updated: 2011-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-15 23:45:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altsunthinkable/pseuds/altsunthinkable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brian and Justin's New Year's Eve doesn't go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Not-So-Great Blackout of 2006

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2006 Holiday Challenge on Livejournal.
> 
> Disclaimer: Queer as Folk and its characters belong to Showtime and Cowlip. This was written for fun and no profit is being made from it.

Brian sighed to himself as he pulled the Corvette into the garage. This was not how he had planned on spending his New Year’s Eve. He and Justin should have been at the loft right now, getting ready to head out to Babylon and enjoy all the festivities of Pittsburgh’s hottest, horniest party. But instead, Brian was just arriving back at the house after a mere two hours at the club which he’d spent actually _working_ to ensure everything was going to run smoothly. Tonight’s celebration was costing a fucking fortune to put on and Brian was loathe to leave it solely in the hands of Theodore and the club manager. If Brian wasn’t going to get to enjoy all the revelry, he sure as fuck was at least going to make a profit off of it.

But when Brian walked into the kitchen and spotted Justin sitting at the kitchen table with a thick blanket drawn around himself as he sipped a mug of hot tea, he felt his irritation slip away. Justin really did look miserable and felt worse. To hear Justin tell it anyway. Though that might have been his drama princess tendencies coming out again. Brian wouldn’t know. Because Justin absolutely had not caught this cold/flu/whateverthefuck it was from him. Because Brian had _not_ been sick last week. _Gus_ had been sick the week before Christmas, when he had been in town to visit before the holiday. Justin had obviously been exposed then and was just very delayed in coming down with it.

“You’re back,” Justin tried to smile as he looked up from his steaming mug but the result was rather underwhelming. He was too pale and the dark circles under his eyes that Brian was trying very hard not to find alarming stood out starkly against his pasty skin. But at least his face had lost the flushed appearance it’d had earlier in the day and his eyes no longer shone too bright. His fever had broken earlier in the afternoon and Justin had been sleeping peacefully for the first time in two days when Brian left to check in at the club.

“I thought your mommy told you to stay in bed,” Brian told him, walking up behind Justin’s chair and gently rubbing the back of his neck. Justin made a quiet noise of appreciation and leaned into his touch. “I don’t need her coming out here after my remaining ball because she’s convinced her little angel isn’t being taken care of properly.”

Jennifer had been calling an average of every six hours to check up on her son since Justin had canceled lunch plans with her and Tucker, as well as Tucker’s parents whom he was to meet for the first time, four days ago. At first Brian suspected she didn’t really believe Justin was sick but once she was convinced her maternal instincts had kicked in full force. So far, Justin had managed to keep her at bay by insisting he didn’t want to expose her and that he was an adult and more than capable of taking care of himself through a small bout of the flu. But Brian knew he would be the one to deal with the wrath of Mother Taylor if she decided Justin wasn’t being well cared for.

“Mmm… actually I’m feeling better,” Justin said, setting his mug down on the table but keeping his hands wrapped around it. “A little cold still but the fever chills are gone. I think I’m going to go up to the studio and try to get a few panels done for the next issue. I’m so far behind now. I’ve lost too many days to this stupid bug already.”

“Are you sure you’re up to it?” Brian asked. “Michael will understand if you need to push the deadline back a couple of days this time.”

“I’m fine, Brian,” Justin said patiently, an amused little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth which Brian chose to ignore. “Besides, I’ve been in bed for almost four days straight. That is way too long, especially considering it hasn’t included any of my favorite activities I usually engage in while there.”

Brian smirked. “I don’t know… you do seem to really enjoy sleeping.”

“If you think I enjoy sleeping half as much as I enjoy having your dick in my ass, it really _has_ been too long,” Justin laughed, standing up slowly. But not slowly enough apparently, because he suddenly put his palms down on the tabletop to steady himself as the room tilted.

“Easy there, Sunshine,” Brian murmured, slipping a supportive arm around his shoulders. “Why don’t we start out slow? You really need a shower.”

“Yeah, I do,” Justin grimaced, suddenly realizing just how disgusting he felt. “Ugh! How can you even stand to be this close to me?”

“Somehow I’m managing,” Brian muttered, steering his partner towards the stairs.

They showered together, mostly so Brian could assure himself that Justin wasn’t going to pass out from all the steam and hot water. Once they were both clean and dry, Brian pulled on a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt while Justin donned some fresh sweats. When they were both dressed, Brian pulled Justin close and kissed his forehead, happy to feel no more heat there than the normal post-shower warmth.

“Still thinking of spending some time in the studio?”

“Yeah… I really want to try to get at least three panels done. But I’ll stop if I get too tired. I promise.”

“All right. I have some work I can do too,” Brian said, trying not to cringe that this was actually the way he was going to be spending his New Year’s Eve… looking over the copy for the latest Mighty Mints ads and trying to figure what it was exactly about it that wasn’t working for him. They were his latest account lured away from Vangard, so Brian had more incentive than even his normal perfectionism to make sure everything was the best it could be.

“I’ll be down in a couple of hours, tops,” Justin promised.

By 9:30, Brian had had enough of this fucking account to last him a lifetime. What had he been thinking of, taking them on at Kinnetik? They didn’t need the business and Brian had always hated their cunt of a VP of Marketing. Fucking bitch was impossible to please. But the appeal of stealing yet another of Gardner’s accounts had gotten the better of Brian yet again. He needed to stop that shit. He was a big fat fucking success. He just happened to love rubbing his former partner’s face in it at every possible opportunity. Brian laughed quietly to himself. Actually, there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with that and he knew full well he was going to continue to do so whenever possible.

The thought was almost enough to turn him back to his computer, but he shut it down instead and headed upstairs. Justin had been in his studio for far too long. He wasn’t about to tuck him back into bed or anything as lesbianic as that. But he would be damned if he was going to sit around alone watching television or surfing the net on New Year’s Eve. He’d pry Justin away from his computer if he had to, but he figured the promise of sitting on the couch watching one of Justin’s favorite movies would do the trick. He’d received _Cars_ on DVD for Christmas from Mikey and the Professor and hadn’t been able to convince Brian to watch it with him yet. But Brian supposed there were worse ways to spend the next couple of hours than with Justin curled up warm against his side on the comfortable leather sofa of the media room, able to watch the mixture of amazement and rapt concentration that always played across his face whenever he watched the latest in computer animation. Justin had lost none of his enthusiasm for animation as he grew-up and the new computer animated features were especially captivating to him. Though apparently nothing was ever going to usurp _Yellow Submarine_ as his all time favorite.

It didn’t take much persuading to get Justin to save his work and shut down his computer. He was drooping noticeably and Brian suspected he wouldn’t make it through even half of the movie, but he knew better than to say so out loud because then Justin would force himself to stay awake just to prove Brian wrong. And sure enough, barely half an hour into the feature, Justin was sound asleep, his head in Brian’s lap. Carefully, Brian reached for the remote and turned off the DVD player and television then settled back on the couch, idly running his fingers through Justin’s soft and freshly washed hair. It had begun to rain about an hour before and the wind was picking up. As Brian listened to the storm outside he’d just begun to think that maybe this wasn’t so bad a way to ring in the New Year after all when everything suddenly went dark.

“Fuck!”

“Whassamadder?” Justin mumbled sleepily. Brian felt him prop himself up on his elbow but couldn’t see him. It was pitch black. He couldn’t have seen his hand in front of his face if he’d bothered to do something as ridiculous as wave it there.

“Power’s out. Must have been the wind. Shit, I need to call the club.”

“Okay,” Justin replied, sounding much more alert than he had a few seconds ago. He moved off of Brian’s lap completely so he could get up. “Wow, it’s really dark.”

“Thank you for stating the obvious… Fuck! Shit! Ow!”

“You okay?”

“No, I’m not fucking okay! I just about broke my goddamn toe on the fucking coffee table. Augh!” Brian continued to curse while trying not to hobble around too much in the dark so he wouldn’t run into something else. He knew his desk was just a little more to the left…

Moving tentatively and limping heavily, Brian finally managed to feel his way to his desk and find his cell phone. The illuminated display was nearly blinding when he flipped it open. After a quick call to Babylon and being relieved to hear the club still had power, Brian moved back over to the sofa, using the light from his cell phone to guide him.

“Well, this sucks,” Justin sighed. “I wonder how long it’ll be out for.”

“If it’s a downed line it could be hours,” Brian replied.

“Shit. That means we don’t have any heat since the blowers on the heater need electricity. And so does the well pump. No running water. We really should have a generator living way out here, you know? I guess it’s a little late to think of that now. We should unplug all the electronics so if there’s a power surge when it comes back on they won’t get zapped.”

“Whoa! Slow down, okay?” Brian put a restraining hand on Justin’s arm as he was about to get up and head off to do god knows what. “One thing at a time. First, let’s go find some flashlights and I think we have some of those candles leftover from the table for Christmas dinner.”

“Yeah, they’re in a drawer in the island in the kitchen. And there’s a flashlight plugged into the wall socket by the fridge.”

Still using Brian’s cell phone as a makeshift flashlight, they carefully made their way into the kitchen. Then Brian grabbed the flashlight and turned it on while Justin fumbled through the drawers, finding all the candles he could, as well as a box of matches. He lit several of the small white votives, each in their own glass block holder that gave the illusion of ice and a soft glow filled the room.

“That’s better,” he sighed.

“What? Afraid of the dark?” Brian teased.

“No, not really,” Justin replied, refusing to rise to the bait. “That was just _really_ dark. It doesn’t get that dark in the city.”

“Yet another convenience…” Brian muttered.

“Oh stop it. You love this place now, too. So since you have the flashlight, why don’t you go unplug the computers and the TV and all that. I’m going to move some of these candles into the living room. If we light a fire in there and shut the doors we should stay warm enough if the power doesn’t come back on until morning.”

When Brian returned from his task, he found Justin sitting on the sofa in the living room, holding Brian’s cell phone to his ear. After a minute he tossed it onto the coffee table and sighed. “Great… just great.”

“What?” Brian asked, depositing a blanket on the cushions next to Justin. He’d taken a minute upstairs to grab it from the linen closet, as well as to change into a long sleeved shirt for himself and to put on some socks. The house wasn’t very well insulated and Justin was right that it was going to get cold if they didn’t have heat all night. All the more reason to get that fire started as well. He moved to the hearth and started piling logs onto the grate.

“I called the power company. The estimate is we won’t have power back for 7 hours.”

“We’ll be fine.”

“I know.”

If Justin hadn’t been feeling sick and the weather was better, Brian would have suggested they just drive into the city and stay at the loft for the night. But the wind was nearly howling outside now and Brian knew in reality they were probably safer, and especially Justin would be more comfortable, just spending the night holed up in the living room of the manor house.

Fairly shortly and with a minimum amount of struggle, Brian soon had a respectable sized fire burning in the fireplace. He settled onto the sofa beside Justin and Justin immediately curled into him and shivered a little.

“Cold? The fire should warm this room up pretty quick.”

“I know,” Justin sniffed, snuggling closer. “I think I’m still a little sicker than I thought. But I’m kind of hungry too. And we can’t cook anything…”

“Why not? The range is gas, we just need to light it with a match. How about some of Debbie’s soup? There’s still some in the freezer.” Debbie had delivered a vat of the stuff when Gus had been sick even though Gus didn’t like it. But Justin did, so he’d eaten some of it and frozen the rest to eat later.

“We shouldn’t open the fridge or freezer unless it’s necessary, to keep them insulated,” Justin protested.

“What are you? An emergency preparedness manual?” Brian asked, irritated but affection softening his words. “You’re hungry. You’re sick. You need to eat something. You like Debbie’s soup. I’m opening the goddamned freezer.”

“Okay,” Justin laughed quietly as he pushed himself up off of Brian’s chest.

Leaving him wrapped up in the blanket, Brian made his way back into the kitchen, lit the stove, and set the soup to heat up. As he slowly stirred the frozen block and watched it gradually melt, Brian found his thoughts drifting. Debbie’s soup was okay but Justin made it better.

 _God, he really had been a mother-fucking piece of shit..._

No. No regrets. Just relief and appreciation that Justin was every bit as strong as he was and unafraid to not take any of his shit. Brian wasn’t sure he would have made it through all that if it hadn’t been for…

Enough of that. It was all in the past now.

When Brian carried the bowl of warm soup back into the living room, Justin smiled at him and accepted it gratefully. He ate it slowly, pausing frequently to gaze at the fire which danced, snapped, and crackled in its grate. When he was done he set down his bowl and sighed happily.

“I really love this room.”

Brian wrapped his arm around Justin’s shoulders, drawing him closer and pressing a kiss to the side of his head. “I know you do,” he murmured.

They sat in silence for a long time, just watching the fire. Justin had just started to drift off again when Brian’s cell phone suddenly started to beep.

“What the fuck?” Brian asked, leaning forward to pick it up. Justin took it from his hand and silenced it before turning and capturing Brian’s lips in a soft, tender kiss.

“I set the alarm,” he explained when they parted. “Happy New Year.”

Brian smiled and kissed Justin again, harder this time, not pulling back until Justin was breathing hard, his fingers clutching at Brian’s hair. “Happy New Year.”

No, this wasn’t a bad way to bring in the New Year at all.


End file.
